National Briefing | Midwest: Illinois: Mayor Added To Torture Suit

By LIBBY SANDER

Published: February 15, 2007

Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago was added as a defendant to a federal civil lawsuit accusing city officials of covering up torture of dozens of criminal suspects by police officers on the South Side in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr. Daley, who is seeking his sixth term as mayor in an election on Feb. 27, was Cook County's top prosecutor in the early 1980s when some of the most serious incidents of brutality are alleged to have taken place. The lawsuit is one of several filed in federal court in recent years on behalf of men claiming that police officers tortured them into giving false confessions. LIBBY SANDER